The Cartographers’ Guild is a forum created by and for map makers and aficionados, a place where every aspect of cartography can be admired, examined, learned, and discussed. Our membership consists of professional designers and artists, hobbyists, and amateurs—all are welcome to join and participate in the quest for cartographic skill and knowledge.

Although we specialize in maps of fictional realms, as commonly used in both novels and games (both tabletop and role-playing), many Guild members are also proficient in historical and contemporary maps. Likewise, we specialize in computer-assisted cartography (such as with GIMP, Adobe apps, Campaign Cartographer, Dundjinni, etc.), although many members here also have interest in maps drafted by hand.

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ. You will have to register before you can post or view full size images in the forums.

The Known Realm of Arcadia

Greetings all!

It has been quite some time since I have posted any maps on here. I have had the opportunity to work on an amazing project and I must give much thanks to this fantastic website and its community. If it were not for this site I wouldn't have been recognized by the author who commissioned me. Thank you Cartographer's Guild!

I present to you The Known Realm of Arcadia. It is a continental map for the up coming book series "The Battle For Arcadia", a very intriguing adult fantasy series that breaks away from today's mainstream fantasy. It will be releasing very soon. If you're interested, keep checking the website for updates www.thebattleforarcadia.com

The map took about 11 months to finish. This is mainly due to being pulled off of the map to help with other art aspects of the project which were equally fun. The map will be featured as a poster which will be available for purchase in the near future. it is comprised of 16 nations and over 160 major locations. I did it in photoshop with my wacom bamboo tablet. Hope you like it.

UPDATE: OK i figured out why it wasnt showing up on the web as it looked in photoshop. It was because i made the whole thing in CMYK for printing to poster. Changing it to RGB did the trick. It shouldnt look so dark now.

The obviously computer generated halo behind the text, and the 'carved' 3d look of the title contrast with the 'drawn on paper' look of the rest of the map, and a 'Capitol' is a building, cities are 'Capital's.

Also the inset, scale bar, and compass don't match up. Assuming the inset map is correct, the map is in a Stereographic projection with the centre of projection near the southeast corner. That means that compass bearings would vary considerably over the map, and the scale would vary from being true in the southeast, to everything being about about 1.5-2 times too long (or 3-4 times too big) in the northwest.

on a different note it would be cool if you could use the "attachment" function to actually attach a version of your map to the post - that way it will be saved for posterity no matter what happens to the other page

oh, and a little side note for the creators of the website. The picture looks really cool - however ...
1. Doesn't say what it is, if you hadn't said fantasy series I would have thought it was a computer game.
2. Only way to follow what happens is on twitter - ie. when I don't really use twitter I can't follow news on the game and as they don't even have a sign up for a newsletter (or just a get a mail when we launch) people might just forget about the page again and never return.